I end up reviewing a lot of anime at EuroCultAV. I get a nice blend of science fiction, romance, comedy, but one genre that I find is sorely lacking in the stuff I review is horror. I've seen lots of horror anime titles in the past, but it seems that the genre is either not popular enough to get new titles, or the companies releasing anime on Blu just aren't putting the new horror titles out. This month, however, those fine folks at Section 23 have given horror fans a small treat in the guise of Corpse Party: Tortured Souls a 4 episode horror OVA.

Corpse Party: Tortured Souls opens after the end of a school festival. A group of friends are cleaning up after the event with one of them moving on to a new home and new school after it is all over. In an effort to commit to their everlasting friendship the group perform a ritual that is supposed to bind each one to each other. However, things do not go exactly right and the group find themselves trapped in an alternate dimension. Their high school was built on the grounds of an elementary school where 30 years previously children were murdered by their teacher. In an effort to cover up those events the school was burnt to the ground. The group of friends now find themselves in a ghostly dimension at that elementary school, with the ghost of the dead children and their teacher stalking them. They must find a way to survive, and get back home.

Corpse Party blends a lot I love about the horror genre in general with what I love about horror in anime. The 4 episode OVA is chocked full of dread and suspense, and has a wonderfully creepy atmosphere. They have creepy and bizarre character designs, and solid amounts of gore. Though some of it is quite disturbing. Like other horror anime series it uses the format to it's advantage and has a nice surreal vibe at times that works to add an even further level of the bizarre to the episodes.

Audio/Video (4/5)

Section 23 presents Corpse Party on Blu-ray with a 1:78:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer preserving the shows OAR. The show has a more naturalistic color scheme with a lot of Earth tones, grey, blacks, and the transfer reflects that. Everything looks quite good here with lots of fine detail as well.

The audio is presented with a DTS-HD MA 2.0 track in Japanese. The track is quite serviceable with dialogue, score, and ambient sound coming through nicely.

Extras (0/5)

NOTHING.

Overall

Corpse Party: Tortured Souls is a quite solid horror anime. It has some great design work and animation and solid and disturbing violence. It's also only 4 episodes, so it feels like a quick sonic blast of horror. The Audio/Video work present here is excellent and seems to accurately reflect the look of the show. There are no extras so I have to leave this at RECOMMENDED for the whole package, though I do HIGHLY RECOMMEND this show for fans of horror anime.